Ann Killion, Chronicle columnist, is seen on Monday, Dec. 10, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif.

Ann Killion, Chronicle columnist, is seen on Monday, Dec. 10, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

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Mike Montgomery won a tourney game as a lower seed for the first time since 1998.

Mike Montgomery won a tourney game as a lower seed for the first time since 1998.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

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Cal's Montgomery needed this win

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Mike Montgomery has been doing this long enough that he's not going to circle any particular win or put an exclamation mark next to any specific score.

"I don't have landmarks," he said after Cal's 64-61 victory over UNLV at HP Pavilion. "I'm just really happy for the kids."

Even though he tried to low-key it, the truth is that Cal's upset of fifth-seeded UNLV was a very big deal. For the Bears and for Montgomery himself.

The NCAA Tournament is a three-week star-making factory. Not so much for the players - we only remember a handful of names from year to year - but for the coaches. The Krzyzewskis and Izzos of the world were made in March. So are the rising stars like VCU's Shaka Smart and Butler's Brad Stevens.

Montgomery's reputation was also molded in the month of March, but that was 15 years ago, back when he was at Stanford and the Cardinal were the bright hard-working team no one wanted to face. In 1998 Montgomery guided Stanford to a Final Four berth. That was also the last time one of his teams beat a higher seed in the tournament.

Until Thursday. Perhaps Cal was seeded too low as a No. 12. UNLV certainly looked seeded too high as a No. 5. But it counts as an upset, and it sets up a match between Cal and No. 4-seed Syracuse on Saturday.

Cal needed this win. The Bears were flat to end the regular season, vanished in overtime against Utah in the Pac-12 tournament and had an amazingly favorable draw: a rematch from early in the season and all the comforts of home, playing just 48 miles from Haas Pavilion.

And Montgomery needed this win. While the Bears have made the NCAA Tournament four of his five seasons at Cal and he's tied for the most conference wins (with Washington) during that time, he doesn't have a standout NCAA win as the Bears coach. He didn't have a victory to circle. The Bears lost to a worse seed in 2009, won a draw (8 vs. 9) in 2010 and then lost to eventual champion Duke that March. A year ago, the Bears looked terrible in the play-in game. It hasn't been an impressive March resume.

Worse, a first-round loss would have meant that this season would be remembered solely as the season of "the Shove." For Montgomery's uncharacteristic loss of composure in pushing Allen Crabbe during the USC game, his inappropriate defense of the move in the immediate aftermath, his forced apology and his reprimand by the league. Rightly or wrongly, any postseason failure by the Cal team would likely be linked to that event.

Instead, Cal wrote a different story for itself and for its coach on Thursday night. The Bears played hard. And Montgomery coached smart, employing a 3-out, 2-in zone defense, his most extensive use of a zone since he was at Montana in 1986. The zone frustrated UNLV, which went more than 11 minutes in the second half without a field goal, and neutralized NBA prospect Anthony Bennett who finished with 15 points, just four of 11 from the field.

Montgomery dared the Rebels to beat him from the perimeter. And for a time it looked like they might, hitting five three-pointers in the first half before cooling off.

"So many times you've seen coaches, me included, play a zone and a guy gets a three and you say, 'Get out of the zone!' " Montgomery said. "But eventually you hope it comes back to you."

For their part, the Bears were able to penetrate. Senior Robert Thurman scored 12 points off the bench, all coming on two-handed dunks that electrified the pro-Cal crowd.

"You know for most guys that are 6-10," said Thurman, "it's not very hard to dunk."

Montgomery also made sure that his players fouled in the waning seconds when their lead narrowed. He was faulted in the Pac-12 tournament loss for not having his players foul before Utah made a three-pointer to tie the game and send it into overtime.

In the pre-tournament news conference this week, Montgomery sounded a bit wistful for his Stanford days.

"Stanford, as I always said, is a unique one-off deal," he said, noting that he never really understood the differences between Stanford and the rest of college basketball. And he pointed out that it's been a different experience at Cal.

"We haven't distinguished ourselves as well as we did at the end of the Stanford thing," he said.

But Cal distinguished itself well on Thursday. A technical underdog with a favorable circumstance, the Bears and their coach handled their opponent.